As I sat in the Khawaris’ house in Dasht-e-Barchi, the Hazara district in western Kabul, in June, Fatima smiled as she flipped through her sketchbooks, which were full of meadows, farmhouses, portraits of herself and her family, and the Kabul skyline.
Twelve-year-old Fatima Khawari’s parents tried their best to keep her away from the war and violence that had blighted their own childhoods. Like so many in Afghanistan’s Hazara Shia community, they had endured a campaign of persecution during the civil wars of the 1990s and the first Taliban rule that forced them to flee to Pakistan in 1998. After the U.S. invasion and the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, Fatima’s parents returned to Kabul, believing they were safe and determined to make a better, happier life for their family.
Twelve-year-old Fatima Khawari’s parents tried their best to keep her away from the war and violence that had blighted their own childhoods. Like so many in Afghanistan’s Hazara Shia community, they had endured a campaign of persecution during the civil wars of the 1990s and the first Taliban rule that forced them to flee to Pakistan in 1998. After the U.S. invasion and the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, Fatima’s parents returned to Kabul, believing they were safe and determined to make a better, happier life for their family.
As I sat in the Khawaris’ house in Dasht-e-Barchi, the Hazara district in western Kabul, in June, Fatima smiled as she flipped through her sketchbooks, which were full of meadows, farmhouses, portraits of herself and her family, and the Kabul skyline.
The drawings suggested an innocence so at odds with her life and surroundings. On May 15, a series of bomb explosions had ripped through Fatima’s school, the Sayed ul-Shuhada high
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